Visual imagery and mental reconstruction of scenes are considered core components of episodic memory retrieval. Individuals with absent visual imagery (aphantasia) score lower on tests of autobiographical memory, suggesting that aphantasia may be associated with differences in episodic and associative processing. In this online study, we tested aphantasic participants and controls on associative recognition and memory confidence for three types of associations encoded incidentally: associations between visual–visual and audio–visual stimulus pairs, associations between an object and its location on the screen, and intraitem associations. Aphantasic participants had a lower rate of high-confidence hits in all associative memory tests compared with controls. Performance on auditory–visual associations was correlated with individual differences in a measure of object imagery in the aphantasic group but not in controls. No overall group difference in memory performance was found, indicating that visual imagery selectively contributes to memory confidence. Analysis of the encoding task revealed that aphantasics made fewer associative links between the stimuli, suggesting a role for visual imagery in associative processing of visual and auditory input. These data enhance our understanding of visual imagery contributions to associative memory and further characterize the cognitive profile of aphantasia.

中文翻译：

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失语症的联想处理和记忆信心降低

场景的视觉图像和心理重建被认为是情景记忆检索的核心组成部分。缺乏视觉意象（失语症）的个体在自传体记忆测试中得分较低，这表明失语症可能与情景和联想加工的差异有关。在这项在线研究中，我们测试了幻觉参与者和控制对联想识别和记忆信心的三种偶然编码的关联：视觉 - 视觉和视听刺激对之间的关​​联，对象与其在屏幕上的位置之间的关联，以及内在协会。与对照组相比，幻觉参与者在所有联想记忆测试中的高置信度命中率较低。听觉-视觉关联的表现与幻觉组对象意象测量的个体差异相关，但与对照组无关。没有发现记忆性能的总体组差异，表明视觉图像选择性地有助于记忆信心。对编码任务的分析表明，幻觉在刺激之间产生的关联联系较少，这表明视觉图像在视觉和听觉输入的关联处理中发挥作用。这些数据增强了我们对视觉意象对联想记忆的贡献的理解，并进一步描述了失语症的认知特征。对编码任务的分析表明，幻觉在刺激之间产生的关联联系较少，这表明视觉图像在视觉和听觉输入的关联处理中发挥作用。这些数据增强了我们对视觉意象对联想记忆的贡献的理解，并进一步描述了失语症的认知特征。对编码任务的分析表明，幻觉在刺激之间产生的关联联系较少，这表明视觉图像在视觉和听觉输入的关联处理中发挥作用。这些数据增强了我们对视觉意象对联想记忆的贡献的理解，并进一步描述了失语症的认知特征。